I know that there's a number of readers who don't like it when OSnews covers political topics, I'm one of them. These political upheavals however spell danger for operating system hobbyists and so I dedicate this article to framing the political news within the context of what we are here to read about: operating systems.

(1) Telephone companies have been routing "unknown, random, and legally unvetted traffic of others" for how long now? It's called a phone call. Before the internet, we had BBS's, many of them owned and operated by individuals on their personal computers. Arguably, a world of BBS's would be much harder for governments to control than the internet: decentralized, in the hands of private individuals, etc. On the other hand, decentralization also makes it harder to engage in the sort of large-scale organizing that you see with things like WikiLeaks, Anonymous, etc.

And long before BBS's, phone companies were routinely routing unknown, random, and legally unvetted conversations.

(2) In any case, the originator is paying. In this case, the "originator" is whoever owns the internet account you're using to access the internet. If you personally aren't paying for your point of access, the analogy is still bad, since lots of people use phones & their networks without paying for them.

You refer to an operating system as if it were an originator and participant, but it's not. The operating system is merely a tool for the user, comparable to the hardware inside a phone.